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Friday, February 3, 2012

El Recodo - looking for a tannery

OMG! OMG! –I’ve been putting off trying to see if our satellite would hook up and go on-line. I just knew I would get aggravated especially if I had to talk to the techs at Hughes.Net. (It quit working when we got to San Blas and so we got a Telcel stick)

Well – I finally bite the bullet. Told Bill to turn all the boxes back on and push the search button. I had out all my info to deal with the “techs.”Stanley went up, search, search, search LOCKON. OMG! So he is up and working fine – I’m on line using Stanley and now we have a Telcel stick that is paid up until the middle of March – Ducky. Guess we’ll use it in the evening when HughesNet gets so slow.

I started writing this yesterday and so excited that the satellite was working – I should have just been quiet as this morning it is not working again. All the lights are on and it should work but………Back to using the Telcel. Will check the connections etc. later and see if it comes back on.

Well I've been on line with HughesNet for 31 minutes roaming from Mexico - can't wait to see that bill. Anyway after checking everything else the tech suggested it is the router that is bad so I pluged the modem directly into the laptop and success on line - so we decided it is probably the router that is bad. So we would just go get a new one. Then we unpluged the line from my laptop to the modem and NOW the damn thing is working fine with the router.

Well until it stops again that is. Which it has - stopped that is. GRRRR

One thing about coming to Las Jaibas RV Park that has always bothered us is that there aren’t any close Pemex (gas stations) that are easy to get into with a big rig. If going North its about 100 miles to one. Well they are just start construction on one just down the street. Won’t help us this year but will sure be nice in the future for everyone driving from this section of town.

Took another picture of clean Alfie looking from the front to the back.

Just after I finished my post this morning we hopped in Willie and took off for the town of El Recodo about 40 miles away. It just so happens that to get to El Recodo we kind of had to go in the same direction as Malpica – so of course we had to go there and get some more croissants and - goody –we discovered a new roll with sugar on top. Had to get some of them too. Before we got back in the car we walked down to take a look at the town’s little church. When we were here last year it was getting a new coat of paint. Looks pretty nice now.

A closer look at the statues on top of it. That’s the Virgin Guadalupe and a peasant man. Interesting

From Malpica we had to back track and take another road east off Highway 15 between the road to the airport and just before the town of Villa Union. We knew El Recodo was somewhere on the road that headed east, but where? We passed through one little town after another but no El Recodo.

Its not important what side of the street your park or drive on

Finally stopped and asked a man in a little store – he told us it was about 20 minutes further. Began to wonder when the road narrowed and the bushes started to hang over the pavement. Didn’t look like it was very well travelled. So why were we going to El Recodo? Well while in La Noria Roberto told Bill that there were several tanneries there. And that he might be able to find goat hides. ? Well you wondered.

Just as I was about to suggest turning around we came to the arch.

The main street of El Recodo. Notice the bottoms of the electric poles are painted red, white and green.

The town is well known because the Banda El Recodo is from there and it is a very famous Mexican band. Known all over the world. The founder of the band, Don Cruz Lizárraga, was born here. He only went as far as his first year of junior high school. He taught himself to play the clarinet against the whishes of his father. He had to sell one of his pigs to raise the money for his first clarinet. When needing more money he picked corn for a neighbor. The band has been around since 1938 and continues to be under the leadership of the Lizárraga family. It consists of four clarinets, three trumpets, a bass drum, a snare drum, a tuba, three trombones and two singers. Now you know as much as I do – going to try to find a CD next time we go to the market.

I asked Bill if he knew were the tanneries were. Nope – after driving around a bit he found an old man and asked him. Well it seems we were right in front of one of them BUT it wasn’t open anymore.

The man pointed back up the road saying there was another one that way. Drove “that way” but didn’t see anything that looked like a tannery.

Saw another older man putting his bicycle away and stopped to ask him. Yep, he sure did – turned out his son-in-law owned it – and he would take us to it. He jumped on his bike and we followed him back the way we had come.

He stopped parked his bike up against a fence and walked through the front door of a gated house. He motioned for Bill to follow him. Hummmmm……

They came out the front door with a younger man and walked to the carport area. Behind the fence behind a truck parked there they stopped to talk. I could see something hanging in the background.– no wonder we didn’t know this was a tannery.

I was still sitting in the car, but was getting hot so I got out and stood looking around. The lady of the house came out and smiled at me. “ Pase, por favor”, she said motioning to me to come in. I walked over and she continued on into the house repeating “Pase.” I shook my head no and thanked her and walked over towards where Bill was. She followed. She watched me watch the men talk for a while and then asked me if I needed to use the Baño. Using my very limited Spanish I replied, “No, gracias”. She nodded, turned and went out to visit with a neighbor. Bill was busy explaining I didn’t speak Spanish.

The tannery is very small and all the work is done by hand. No big tumbling wooden tubs or machinery. These are cow hides they are hanging from clips on rawhide strips dripping on the floor.

They are drying. By tomorrow they will be dry. He has already sold these. He buys the raw hides for about US$10 – does all the work necessary to tan them and sells them for about US$25. He says he’s raised five children by doing this.

When the cow is skinned it has to be cleaned and made thinner to the desired thickness. He does this by hand using this blade/knife. By hand!! Scraping and scraping until it is cleaned and the right thickness. Very interesting process and man.

There used to be eight tanneries in town – now his is the only one that is still open.

Driving back through town we spotted this guy – he was headed away from the tannery. Good thinking on his part.

There was a pretty little church next to the gazebo in the center of town.

We rode around a little just looking at things. A green and yellow house with the laundry on the fence.

A gold and blue home with lots of plants. Almost all the homes had lots of plants on the front porches.

This horse was rubbing his nose on the cement porch. Guess he had an itch.

A group of colorful homes. I wonder if they give you their color instead of their address. The planter is painted red, white and green.

On the way back I asked Bill to stop so I could get a picture of one of the pretty yellow trees.

All in all it was another interesting trip. Today I don’t need any adventures – my time with HughesNet took care of all the excitement I need today. Oh I forgot – tonight is the Art Walk in the Centro Historico – have to do that.

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